Long Hot Summoning (29 page)

MacDonald Boulevard and onto Highway 33.

“She’s sucking out your life force,” Austin repeated, enunciating each word with caustic clarity.

“And that’s a reason to be rude, then?”

“Some people might think so.”

“Some people might be after jumping in the harbor; that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

“So, just out of curiosity . . .” He hooked his claws in the seat as the truck maneuvered around another corner. “. . . what would be grounds for rudeness in your book?”

Dean’s brow creased above the upper edge of his glasses as he thought about it.

After a few moments, Austin sighed. “Never mind.” There’d been discussion about Austin remaining at the guest house to keep an eye on things, but in the end they’d decided it was too great a risk. Without Dean there to snack on, there was always the chance that Meryat would turn to the cat and the cat didn’t have life force to spare.

“Although it’s entirely possible she can’t feed from me.”

“Why?”
Before Austin could answer, Dean had raised a hand, cutting him off.

“Because you’re a cat.”

“Does there need to be another reason?”

“Is
there ever another reason?”

The guest house had proven it could take care of itself.

The mall parking lot was about half full. Fully three quarters of the parked vehicles were minivans, which was disturbing mostly because Dean didn’t know how disturbed he should be. Or why. Just to be on the safe side, he parked next to a white sedan with Ohio plates.

“I’d feel better about this if I could go in there with you,” Austin muttered as Dean pulled an empty hockey bag out from behind the seats. “Do you remember the plan?”

“Find a spot by the food court, place the bag on its side with the zipper open, place the dish of cold Red River cereal in the bag, close the bag while the basilisk is eating, only look at it with this piece of mirror.” Dean held up the sideview mirror that had broken off the truck on his first drive to Ontario a year and a half ago. The support had snapped, but the glass was fine, so he’d hung on to it. “You’re sure it’ll come to the cereal, then?”

“It’s got to be hungry, and that stuff’s close enough to chicken feed it’ll never know the difference.”

“I can’t believe we’re ...”

“. . . utilizing local resources to disable a metaphysical threat.” Dean stared at the cat.

Austin stared back.

“Well, when you put it like that,” Dean said at last. He opened the door and stepped down onto the asphalt. “Try to stay out of sight. The windows are open and you’ve got lots of water, but I don’t want some good Samaritan calling the cops on me because they think you’re suffering.”

“Nobody understands my pain.”

“You can say that again,” Dean sighed as he closed the door.

The parking lot felt soft underfoot. It wasn’t the heat, even though it was hot enough to paint his T-shirt to his body, and bright enough to light it up like Signal Hill; it was as if the asphalt
itself
was rising around each boot and trying to drag him down. Not exactly what had happened to Claire and Diana the morning he’d dropped them off since they’d left visible footprints in the tar and he had no actual evidence that this was going on anywhere but in his head. No footprints. No smell of melted tar.

Just a feeling. Accompanied by the certainty that things on the Otherside had gotten worse instead of better.

Things always get worse
before
they get better,
he told himself and didn’t find it very reassuring. He wanted to help. He couldn’t help. All he could do was make sure that when Claire came home, she wouldn’t be facing a life-sucking reanimated mummy. Given the condition of the parking lot, it didn’t seem like enough.

He found himself walking with an exaggerated, high-stepping gait. And he wasn’t the only one. Across the lot, two kids, one around three, the other no more than five, were walking the exact same way. The funny thing was, their mother-Dean assumed it was their mother although she could have been a babysitter-didn’t seem to notice. Her feet were dragging with the unmistakable exhaustion of someone who’d just spent the morning with two preschoolers in a shopping mall.

Were children more open to the extraordinary?

He flushed as he realized the mother-or babysitter-was aware of his attention.

Flushed darker when he realized she was staring at his . . . uh, jeans . . . and smiling in a way that was making him distinctly nervous. Picking up his pace, he made it to the concrete in time to turn and see all three of them pile into a later model station wagon.

Not a minivan.

Which was good; right?

Feeling vaguely nostalgic for the days when he knew what the hell was going on, he went into the mall.

The air-conditioning hit him like a dive into the North Atlantic, and the sweat dribbling down the sides of his neck dried so fast it left goose bumps behind. A trio of fourteen-year-old girls burst into high-pitched giggling as he stepped back and held open the door for them, the giggling punctuated by “Oh. My. God.” at frequent intervals as they passed. Dean had the uncomfortable feeling they were referring to the rip in the right leg of his jeans. Maybe he shouldn’t have worn them out in public, but after years of being washed and ironed, they were so thin that they were the coolest pair he owned in spite of how tightly they fit.

He’d parked by the food court entrance, having a strong suspicion that a man carrying a basilisk in a hockey bag was going to need to cover as short a distance as possible inside the mall.

By the time he reached the edge of the seating area, he remembered what he hated about these kind of places. He’d seen dead cod with more personality.

Actually, in this kind of weather, dead cod had personality to spare.

Only the fact that the forces of evil were using this mall as part of their attempt to take over the world made it any different than a hundred malls just like it.

Although not a lot different.

Austin had been certain the basilisk would be hanging around the food court.

Dean studied the area carefully, walked over to the ubiquitous Chinese Take-Out, and bought an egg roll and a coffee. He couldn’t just sit down at a table in the food court without food, taking up space he had no real right to; that would be rude.

Tray in one hand, hockey bag in the other, he made his way through a sudden crowd of teenagers toward the more thickly filled of the two planters-the perfect basilisk hiding place.

The good news: the table closest to the planter was empty.

The bad news: either a chicken-lizard combo smelled like the shallows after one of the big boats had just flushed her bilges on a hot day or the basilisk wasn’t the only thing the planter was hiding.

It certainly explained why the statue they’d found had been holding a trowel and a bucket.

He wasted a moment wondering why they’d positioned plastic plants under a skylight, then reached into his bag and took the top off the container of cooked cereal.

With the open bag carefully braced between his feet, he set the mirror in his lap, and opened his coffee.

As he took his first sip, he heard his grandfather’s voice,
“For the love of
God, bai, you don’t go buying coffee from a Chinese Take-Out! That’s why the good
laird gave us Timmy Horton’s!”

Dean put the lid back on his cardboard cup, forcing himself to swallow.

His grandfather had been a very wise man.

The egg roll probably would have tasted better if his sense of smell hadn’t gone numb. On the other hand, had his sense of smell still been functioning, he wouldn’t have been able to eat the egg roll, so he supposed it evened out.

How long was he supposed to be waiting, then?

“Dean Mclssac? Christ on crutches, it is you!”

The young woman who dropped into the other seat had a blaze of red hair over startlingly black eyebrows and breasts that threatened to spill out over the top of her . . . Actually, Dean had no idea of what she was wearing. He remembered the breasts. When he wasn’t playing hockey, dreams of those breasts had pretty much got him through his last year of high school. And occasionally when he
was
playing hockey, which was how he’d dislocated his shoulder. Unfortunately, she’d been dating the same guy since grade nine and no one else stood a chance. She’d been the perfect, safe, unattainable fantasy. “Sherri Murphy. What’re you doing so far from home?”

“Working. Same as. Got a job out at the nylon plant.” Sherri grinned across the table at him. “Damn, it’s some good to see a familiar face. You here alone?”

“Yeah . . .”

Her grin sharpened.

Dean wondered why he’d never noticed the predatory curve to it before. No wait; he knew why. “Uh, Jeff . . .”

She shrugged, and he missed the first few words. “. .. boat with his dad. Like you can support a family fishing these days.“ Her gaze turned frankly speculative. ” What about you?“

“Me?”

“You got a girl?”

“A girl . . . yes.” Floundering without knowing how he’d gotten caught up by the surf, he clung to the thought of Claire. “She’s around here somewhere.” Which, if
somewhere
was stretched about as far as it could go, was the absolute truth.

Head cocked to one side, Sherri studied his face. “You know, word was, Dean Mclssac couldn’t lie to save his life.” The tip of her tongue traced a moist line over her lower lip.

Something warm and soft brushed up against Dean’s ankle, and he felt his cheeks begin to burn. “Listen, there’s a, uh, bar down in Portsmouth Village, the, uh .

. .” The pressure against his leg increased, moving softly up and down his calf. “. . .

Ship to Shore. Bunch of us from home are there most Saturdays.”

“Talking about when you’re going back east?” Her voice had picked up a wistful tone.

“Yeah. That, too. The owner has a load of Black ‘Arse trucked up from home about once a month.”

“Beer and nostalgia, hard to resist.”

The lightest touch against the inside of his knee. Dean’s whole body twitched although, crammed into the seat as he was, he couldn’t jump back. He was amazed she’d found enough room to maneuver under these tiny tables.

“I’m not remembering you as being this jumpy.”

Smiling like she knew a secret, she stood. “Saturdays, eh? Maybe I’ll be stopping by, then. I’d like to meet the girl who finally got you.” More than a little confused, he watched her walk away.

Got me wha . . .

A gentle caress against his other leg.

Sherri had disappeared into the drugstore.

How did she . . . ?

Oh.

Ears on fire, he glanced down at the mirror in his lap. The chicken half of the basilisk was in his hockey bag eating Red River cereal. The lizard part, a long, prehensile, bright green scaly tail, was rubbing up and down his leg.

She must think I’m a total idiot.

Leaning forward, both hands under the table, he gently shoved the tail into the bag.

Claire could never find out about this.

A warm beak investigated his fingers. He pushed it back down toward the cereal.

Austin
could never find out about this.

Holding the zipper clear of stray feathers, he quickly closed it.

The squawk was remarkably loud. Half a dozen heads turned toward him.

“Just caught my basilisk in the zipper,” he explained, threw the bag over his shoulder and hurried for the door, his ears so hot he was sure they were leaving a thermal trail behind them.

Dean listened to the flat, definitive click in disbelief and then turned the key again, just in case. Another click followed by a silence so complete he could hear feathers being rearranged in the hockey bag now tucked behind the seats. “I don’t believe this. The battery’s dead.”

“You were gone for a long time; I got bored.” Austin licked his shoulder. “I was listening to the radio.”

“But I have the keys, and you couldn’t use a key if you had one.” Click.

Nothing. “How did you even turn the electrical system on?”

“It’s a cat thing.”

He laid his head against the steering wheel and jerked it back almost immediately as the black plastic branded the arc of its upper curve into his skin.

“You’re telling me cats can hot wire cars, then?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Austin snapped. “This is a truck.”

“Right.” Because that was all the explanation he was ever going to get.
Okay.

He got out of the truck and stared across the parking lot, watching the heated air rise up off the asphalt and shimmer like a curtain between worlds. If only it was that easy.

Kevin had borrowed his jumper cables back in March and never returned them. He’d be smacking the buddy upside the head for that come Saturday, but it wasn’t going to do him any good now.
A basilisk, a talking cat, and a dead battery walk into a bar . . .

Turning his back on the minivans, he banged his head against the hood of truck.

“You look like you’re having a bad day. Is there something I can do to help?” She was about his age, her name was Mary, she was up from the States for a music festival, and she had, not only a set of jumper cables, but a set long enough to reach from her battery to his. “My brother bought them for me,” she told him tossing a waist-length braid back over her shoulder as she efficiently hooked the two vehicles together. “There, try it now.”

The truck turned over on the first attempt. Dean hit the parking brake, put it in neutral, and got out to help Mary coil her cables.

“Is that your cat?” she asked as Austin put his paws up on the dashboard and peered out at them.

“Not exactly.”

“Ah.” She nodded wisely. “Your girlfriend’s cat. You have the look of a man in over his head.”

As she bent to put the cables in the trunk, Dean was horrified to see the hockey bag rise up from behind the seats and attempt to take flight. He gestured wildly at Austin, who made a rude gesture in return just as the bag slid forward, hit the seat, and knocked Austin’s feet out from under him. On the bright side, bag and cat were out of sight by the time Mary turned. Dean thanked her in a hurry, shook her hand, yanked his feet out of the tar, and dove back into the truck.